We have a rice cooker. It came with the place; this is Asia after all. People I know who have rice cookers swear by them but it is one gadget I have not felt a burning need to have. Quick cook rice has never let me down so far but since we have the cooker, I thought I would give it a try. Besides, I have yet to find boxed rice in the stores. They sell 40 pound bags of rice, as big as my 3 year old, but no quick cook in boxes. So I pull the box out of the cupboard to find that the cooker is still brand new, never been taken out of the packaging. I guess the previous tenants didn't cook much either (they were Asian, we found a cd of pictures from a trip they took to Cambodia. Great temples, made me want to visit. Plus we still get his mail indicating that he owes the cable company a lot of money....) Anyway, I pull out the box and am heartened to see that it is covered in English. Until I see the first amenity listed: "1.2mm Thickness inner pot, prolong the economy's natural life." In college we had this professor who was from South Africa. Brilliant man. His lectures were naturally in English but they were so misearble to sit through because I could never understand a word the man said. This is starting to feel like that. So the next amenity listed on the box is: "Glass top cover, the more pressure, the more rice savory." Chuckling to myself now I open the box and take out the instruction manual to find the directive "Be sure to keep the space between the kettle and the heater plate clean from wet, dust (etc.), to avoid the unit work mulfunction or from damaged." Would it really have been so hard to have someone proofread this thing before you put it on the shelves? Some of the English we find here is so poor, both the grammar and the spelling. It makes me think of the probability of finding the minimum one spelling/grammar mistake on the Chinese take-out menus left on door handles and windshields in the states. Surely I'm not the only one who plays that game? But the other day I saw an ad for a local pre-school offering "Let us teach your childs English". Umm, no thanks, I'll pass. And it leaves me to wonder: are those the people who understand the box and the instruction manual for my rice cooker?
So we went grocery shopping Tuesday night and rice for the cooker was on my list. I did find where they have the small bags (merchandising in Malaysian stores would probably remain a mystery to me even if we lived here for 6 years, not just 6 months) but the new challenge became to find one that had any English on it at all. And I know you're probably thinking "Jack, it's rice, how complicated can it be? Do you really need a bag in English?" But remember I've never made rice in a cooker before, how much rice to how much water? Bottom line, I couldn't find a bag in English that told me so good old Wikipedia hooked me up. I clean the cooker, I wash the rice, which Wikipedia recommended I do and, after all, this is a foreign country (does that make me weird?) put it all in the cooker, and realize that I have not got a single electrical outlet on the kitchen counter. Not one. Maybe this is why the previous tenants never used the damn thing either. Behind the refrigerator there are 2 outlets. So the cooker is plugged in and sitting on top of the fridge because the cord would not reach to put it on the nearest counter. It's turned on, the red light is glowing and if the outcome is anything other than uneventful, I will let you know. Maybe I'll love it so much that I will have to get one for the house when we get back to the states.
Maybe not.
And regarding electrical outlets, we do not have one, not a single one, in any of the bathrooms. Can't use a shaver, can't use a blowdryer. Think of how many outlets you have in the room you are in right now. I think the American standard is 1 every 4 feet? We have one per wall. I guess that's one way to reduce consumption!
Malaysian fun fact #15: The Malaysian numbers superstition, like the American aversion to the number 13, involves the number 4. Apparently the word for the number 4 sounds too much like the word for death, so they avoid using it whenever possible. In our building, above the 13th floor comes floor 13A. On each floor there are 8 units: 1, 2, 3, 3A, 5, 6, etc. Heinz and I had to laugh because Conrad has taken a liking to the number 4 for some reason, and the other night at the Chinese wedding dinner we attended he kept pointing it out to us in one of the books we had brought to keep him occupied. We were horrified that somehow we were going to be considered rude guests or jinx the bride and groom!
Malaysian fun fact #16: The Canadian finish all of their sentences with "eh?"
The Malaysians finish all of their sentences with "la", as in "I have to finish this post, la". It takes a little while to get used to it but I find I hardly even notice it anymore!
Well, naptime is over and I have to go check the rice. Wish me luck!
